The 100-minute race on Detroit’s twisty street circuit gets the green light at 3:40 pm local time (9:40 pm CEST) on Saturday. Matt Campbell qualified fifth-fastest in the 15-minute session, while his fellow Porsche factory driver, Nick Tandy, claimed the sixth grid spot in the sister car. Gianmaria Bruni finished the qualifying session in tenth place in the hybrid prototype fielded by Porsche’s customer team JDC-Miller MotorSports. Meanwhile, bad luck hampered AO Racing’s 911 GT3 R, dubbed ‟Roxy”, with a poorly timed red flag relegating it to eighth in the GTD-Pro class.
The 2.662-kilometre Detroit Street Circuit, with its sharp right-hand bends and unforgiving walls, once again set the scene for an intense qualifying session. Facing mild conditions of 24°C air temperature and only 35°C track temperature, the competitors in the top GTP pushed the limits hard. One hot lap followed another during the thrilling 15-minute session, with the two Porsche 963 racing cars from the Porsche Penske Motorsport factory team regularly appearing in the top third of the timesheets.
Matt Campbell improved his time on his penultimate lap but ultimately had to settle for fifth on the grid. On Saturday, the Australian will share the No. 6 Porsche 963 with French teammate Mathieu Jaminet. Nick Tandy, who had climbed to the top of the timesheets several times during the session, launched a final flying lap just seconds before the end of the session but only managed to improve in the first sector. Alongside reigning IMSA champion Felipe Nasr of Brazil, ‟Mr. 24 Hours” will start the Detroit Grand Prix from sixth on the grid. Tandy earned the nickname by becoming the first driver ever to win the four major 24-hour endurance races at Daytona, Le Mans, the Nürburgring, and Spa-Francorchamps.
‟We had a busy day here in Detroit with two practice sessions for three and a half hours of track time,” said Jonathan Diuguid, Executive Director of Porsche Penske Motorsport. ‟We finished the qualifying fifth and sixth on the grid. We’re a little off the pace over one lap, but in the second practice during the heat of the day, we saw we were better over the longer distance. Nick Tandy and Matt Campbell did a great job in qualifying and avoided mistakes. We’re looking forward to the race and figuring out how to make further improvements.”
In the JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963, qualifying driver Gianmaria Bruni of Italy and Dutch teammate Tijmen van der Helm will start the short Detroit Grand Prix from tenth. The American customer team is aiming to further tweak the setup of its hybrid prototype before the green flag.
GT classes: Red flag robs ‟Roxy” of a better grid position
In the GTD class, Klaus Bachler from Austria and Laurin Heinrich from Germany ran into bad luck. A Ferrari’s off-track excursion triggered a red flag just ten minutes into the 15-minute qualifying session. At that point, the pink AO Racing 911 GT3 R driven by the two former Porsche Juniors was sitting ninth, with Bachler still warming up the tyres for a last-ditch attempt. Although the session briefly resumed to meet the minimum qualifying time, there was no chance to improve their lap times. As a result, AO Racing’s customer entry, fondly known as ‟Roxy”, had to settle for eighth place on the grid.
The Detroit GP broadcast via a free livestream
Round five of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season on the 2.662-kilometre street circuit in Detroit is a sprint race lasting just 100 minutes. The race begins on Saturday, 1 June, at 3:40 pm local time (9:30 pm CEST). Fans outside North America can watch the entire event live for free on IMSA.tv.
Driver comments after qualifying
Matt Campbell (Porsche 963 #6): ‟Fifth place is a pretty solid qualifying result for us in our number 6 car, but we can’t get to the front with outright speed this weekend, so hopefully we can gain the edge in tomorrow’s race with strategy. It’s my first time racing here on the streets of Detroit – a very interesting but also challenging street circuit: narrow and quite slow through the hairpins. We kept the car clean, and now we’re ready for the race.”
Nick Tandy (Porsche 963 #7): ‟Because of a change in weather the track temperature dropped. We struggled a lot to get the tyres up to temperature during the short qualifying session. Overall, the day has been good. The Porsche is running nicely, and the team has done a great job. We have high hopes for tomorrow.”
Gianmaria Bruni (Porsche 963 #85): ‟We’ve been chasing the right setup since this morning. After the first free practice, we made changes for the second session, which worked better. Then we made more adjustments, but that went in the wrong direction. Now we’re compiling all the data for tomorrow’s race, and we’ll see where we stand.”
Klaus Bachler (Porsche 911 GT3 R #77): ‟The qualifying didn’t really go perfectly for us. When the red flag came out, our tyres weren’t 100 per cent ready – they needed another lap or two to reach their ideal temperature. But it is what it is, there’s nothing we can do now. We’re focusing on tomorrow and will do the best we can in the race.”
Qualifying result
GTP class:
1. Van der Zande/Yelloly (NLD/GBR), Acura #93, 1.05.672 minutes
2. Blomqvist/Braun (GBR/USA), Acura #60, 1.05.908 minutes
3. Van der Linde/Wittmann (ZAF/DEU), BMW #25, 1.06.078 minutes
5. Campbell/Jaminet (AUS/FRA), Porsche 963 #6, 1.06.496 minutes
6 Nasr/Tandy (BRA/GBR), Porsche 963 #7, 1.06.626 minutes
10. Bruni/Van der Helm (ITA/NLD), Porsche 963 #85, 1.07.682 minutes
GTD-Pro class:
1. Rockenfeller/Priaulx (DEU/GBR), Ford #64, 1.10.922 minutes
2. Mies/Vervisch (DEU/BEL), Ford #65, 1.11.251 minutes
3. Telitz/Hawksworth (USA/GBR), Lexus #14, 1.11.416 minutes
8. Bachler/Heinrich (AUT/DEU), Porsche 911 GT3 R #77, 1.13.346 minutes
Full results and championship standings https://results.imsa.com.
